IN SYRIA we are seeing exactly the same things that happened in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam and in Libya without Gaddafi.
Assad, Saddam and Gaddafi were all brutal dictators. They were all savages who rose to the top or were born at the top in savage cultures. Savages respect only strength, brutality and fear. Middle Eastern dictators and rulers generally use torture and do disgusting things that decent people would not do.
But another truth of savagery is that the evil man at the top might be less evil, or more sane, or more pragmatic and manageable in his evil, than his opponents. Because those opponents are also savages.
Assad did evil things. But in Muslim terms he was almost a secular figure. The Druze and Christians were better off under him because he was not bothered about wiping them out. He viewed his position in terms of real threats, and if a group had no power to threaten his position, they might well do reasonably well in the context of a savage culture.
This is where we get to the difference between realists and idealists. It’s the difference that explains the fault line between most populists and most globalists. Realists look at an actual context and predictable consequences and judge whether the results of an action will do good based on what’s happened before. Idealists work by some imagined best result in their head, ignoring the realities. So what happened in Afghanistan doesn’t tell them anything. What happened in Iraq doesn’t tell them anything. What happened in Libya doesn’t tell them anything. What happened with every perpetual war or pointless toppling of a dictator with no plan for what happens next doesn’t tell them anything. The nature of savage cultures and Muslim savages, again and again, doesn’t tell them anything.
They aren’t realistic so they can’t notice that some strongman psychopath is sometimes better than a hundred competing strongman psychopaths or better than a different strongman psychopath with much firmer ideology and a much more religious desire to exterminate whoever he deems an infidel. The dictator dentist might be better than the jihadi mob. Idealists can’t understand that. For an idealist, if you do understand that, you’re supporting the dictator dentist.
The idealist will end up supporting people who are just as evil, or much worse, while pretending that they are spreading their ideals. They will put the label ‘moderate’ on a jihadi, and claim they have spread Democracy.
Now many globalists at the top aren’t really idealists, they are crooks seeking money and power, and psychopaths with it. But they know idealism sells. So many lower level globalists are pure idealists. Left or right, they buy the Spreading Democracy rubbish. Regardless of consequences. Regardless of disasters. Regardless of expense.
All they can see and hear is the Ideal. The Promise. It helps that this is all that is presented in the mainstream media.
And they will idealistically love some random jihadi who topples Assad, or some under-sized comedian, when told that this is Ideal. A realist will look at who these people actually are, as well as who they oppose, and then be told they are supporting the Bad Man who Must Be Defeated.
This is how clueless sections of the right and clueless sections of the left can be united, because they are both idealists. They don’t look first and last at objective reality. They can’t learn from real world errors because their politics is entirely about imaginary things or ideal versions of things. A jihadi is, in his way, an idealist. So is an Antifa thug. So is the average uninformed person who hears the mainstream media saying Bad Man Must Go and doesn’t think beyond that.
What happens when the Bad Man goes? Is anything worse waiting? Did it work the last time? Is it it really our problem? Do those cultures stop being savage? Do they come here? Am I any safer? Where has the money gone? These are all pragmatic questions that don’t occur to idealists.
The funniest thing about criticisms of MAGA are that both the Polite Right of ineffectual idealised uselessness and the Raging Left of pure psychosis call it a cult when it’s the least cult-like movement in modern politics. All its critics are ideologically conditioned hyper-emotional responders obsessed with some Shining Vision.
It is only MAGA that looks and says ‘this didn’t work the last thirty-five times, did it?’ It is only MAGA that says ‘that sounds nice, but look at the mess you made.’ It is only MAGA that says ‘where has the money gone?’ And it is only MAGA that says ‘is our country safer, better, richer, happier because of this?’
It is only MAGA that looks honestly at the nature of the dictator and the nature of the opposition to the dictator.
It is only MAGA that notices what fails, and is prepared to accept what works, for the honest betterment of its own nation.
And right now, it is literally only MAGA that seems to notice hundreds of thousands of dead bodies.
The idealists are still busy looking at a mirage in the sanctimonious clouds and being very pleased with what Good People they are while backing jihadis and neo-Nazis and massive fraud and endless slaughter in the process.
This article appeared in Jupplandia on March 8, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.
